


forever is our today

by maggierachael



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (because din's never been a wordy guy), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mandomera Week 2021, aka an adventure into din's head over heels lovesick brain, another experiment in dialogue-less writing, because din and omera vibe so well together they don't even need it, happy mandomera week i would die for them, short and sweet for your entertainment, sir u r smitten just admit it, so domestic i'm gonna hurl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 07:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael
Summary: Mandomera Week — Day 6: Quiet______Everything is still.Din’s never liked still. Never been used to it. Foster home full of kids, precinct full of cops — all busy. All bustling. Activity, movement, noise. Constant sensory input. Something to keep the thoughts away. Light, color, sound; mental markers for his sanity. For his reassurance that everything was fine.And then there’s her.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Omera
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Mandomera Week 2021





	forever is our today

The house is quiet. 

The baby is quiet. 

Everything is still. 

Din’s never liked still. Never been used to it. Foster home full of kids, precinct full of cops — all busy. All bustling. Activity, movement, noise. Constant sensory input. Something to keep the thoughts away. Light, color, sound; mental markers for his sanity. For his reassurance that everything was fine. 

The kid went to sleep hours ago. Slept like a rock, in that ridiculous suit that made him look like a Stay Puft stand-in. He went down easier now. Not like the beginning — with the wailing and the screaming and the driving around the block. Something had changed. Something deeper. Underneath the skin. 

Din didn’t know what, but he’d take it. 

Winta was down too. Took longer, as usual. Insisted on five more minutes...for a total of forty. Asked for another story, another excuse. A glass of milk. Another blanket. To leave the hall light on. To sing her a song. 

She was getting older. Taking advantage of it. Learning the meaning of the word “resistance”. Din couldn’t tell if that made him more scared as a dad or as a cop. 

And then there’s her. 

She sticks around. Christ knows why. Sleeps in his bed, wears his clothes, wakes up next to him in the morning. Calls him sweetheart and tangles her hands in his hair. Makes him breakfast. Helps with the kid. Says he owes her nothing in return. 

He knows he does, but he stays silent. 

She’s sitting on the couch, feet curled under her as she looks at something on her phone. Squinting. She needs glasses. Has them, actually. Just refuses to wear them. But still — beautiful. Even like this, in the middle of the night. After a long day. Makeup smeared under her eyes. Hair yanked up into a rat’s nest of a ponytail. Like nothing he’s ever seen. 

Omera. 

He says it over and over again in his head. Her name. 

_ Omera. Omera. Omera. _

It sounds better than the stillness. 

Better than the noise, even. 

Something all its own. The base notes of a symphony in his head. A melody, caught halfway between static and a radio station. A drumbeat, somewhere deep in his heart. In tune with it. In perfect pitch.

Omera, the woman who walked into his life and chose to stay. 

She looks up. His gut twists. It shouldn’t still do that. Not after a year. No, a year and a half. Maybe almost two? He doesn’t remember. Nothing in his brain functions right when she looks at him like that. Like she can see straight through him. Through his shirt and under his skin. Between his ribs, to that tiny, hollow excuse for a heart of his. Under all the wrinkles, and the exhaustion, and the years of hardened, calcified bullshit. 

She looked at him like she cared. Not many people did that. 

_ You okay? _

She doesn’t say it. Doesn’t need to. Just implies it. Raises an eyebrow. He raises both back. 

_ Fine. _

It’s too quiet to talk. Try it and they’ll wake the baby. She doesn’t look convinced. 

_ You sure? _

He nods. 

_ Yeah.  _

She doesn’t believe him. She never did. That was part of her charm. 

He wonders why she doesn’t find someone she does believe. 

She’s standing now. Tucking her phone into her waistband. Brushing her hair out of her face. She’s in her pajamas. Practically lives in them at home. The ones with the cartoon cacti on them. Winta picked them out. Her Christmas present. Or was it her birthday? Din’s head was still scrambled. All he can focus on is her. 

She’s moving slowly. Her back hurts. Does that a lot now. She’s not as young as she used to be. Neither is he. His bad knees, her bad back. They almost make a healthy human being together. Slightly broken. Old pieces of stone that slot together perfectly. His jagged edges against hers. She smooths his out, he smooths hers. Or he tries. 

That’s what he does for her. Tries. He’s never done that for anyone before. 

It’s a strange feeling. But a welcome one. 

He stands there, against the armchair, as she approaches him. He’s at her bidding. Always has been. Always will be. He’s half convinced she’s magic. Like the women in the kid’s storybooks. Able to bend the entire world to their will. 

Is he her whole world? 

He knows she’s his. That’s for certain. 

Her arms are moving as she approaches, standing firmly in his space. Up to his shoulders. Anchoring there. Fingers against the knots in his neck. He’d never get rid of those. But she made him think that he could. She could melt those away. She’d done everything else for him — why not that?

She’s moving now. Swaying. Dancing? No. Surely not. Din can’t dance. She knows that. 

Can she hear that symphony in his head?

He can’t tell. He can’t see her face. It’s hidden. Buried in the collar of his shirt. Nestled like it belongs there. Her arms are still wrapped around him, and his around hers. Comfortable. Pieces of each other worn away. Gently eroded until they fit together like puzzle pieces. 

How did that song go? The one the guys liked? 

_ Hands. Reaching out. Touching me. Touching you.  _

A cheesy sentiment. Was that who he was now? A greeting card machine? A worn down single in a rusting jukebox?

He cringed just thinking about it. She’d laugh in his face for that. 

(No, she wouldn’t.)

He had to stop going with Cara to dive bars. 

(No, he doesn’t.) 

He could stay glued there. In that tiny living room, on the carpet he’d promised to replace. His knees hurt, but it doesn’t matter. It always hurts. There’s always something. Something straining. The baby won’t eat. He’s getting shit at work. His knees hurt. Something determined to bring him down. Show him who’s really the boss. 

But he’d stay there anyway. As long as she wants. Until the world falls apart around them. Nothing commands his attention but her. Nothing could if it tried. She was a giant, stuffed inside a five-four body and set on the earth to bring him to his knees. 

No one else had been able to do that. Not the toughest or the strongest. He’d had a long life. A hard one. His bones were concrete now. Drilled into the ground, foundations for a building he wouldn’t get to see finished. No one could move him. They hadn’t bothered to try, after a time. 

Until her. 

He wasn’t even sure it was intentional. 

He thinks of the him of two years ago. A year ago. Six months ago, even. The one that recoiled from physical touch. The one that panicked, up at four a.m. feeding a kid he wasn’t sure why he kept. The one that cringed every time the social worker called. That seized up when she asked to visit, as he stared at all the ways he’d jury rigged his life for a baby. 

He thinks of the him that nearly vomited when he asked that social worker to dinner, and the way his eyes would bug out of his head, seeing her caress him now. 

To be fair, his eyes are tempted to bug now. Just for a different set of reasons. 

There’s a word for what he feels. A word even the kid knows. Plastered on DVD cases, and across the piles of wrappers still sitting on Winta’s desk from Valentine’s Day. A loud word. A word that scares him just a bit, even though he knows that’s what this is. 

It’s a big commitment, that word. The point of no return. He hasn’t been able to say it. Not yet. There’s got to be a better time for it. A better place. She deserves that much. Deserves much more than him, but he won’t say that. Won’t risk losing her. 

She’s too perfect for him. Too perfect for his brokenness, patched up with fraying band-aids and more than a couple of prayers. She is better than any man deserves, much less him. She’s beyond what he understands, some chaotic force harnessed into one perfect woman. The feeling in his chest swells every time he thinks about it. 

So, he says nothing. Hopes that she knows how precious this is. How precious she is. How much he would rather die than let go of what they’ve built. 

(She does.) 

(She thinks the same of him.)

He says nothing, and he sways. Dances, in the middle of a messy house. The middle of a perfect storm. Dances to the tune in his head, that symphony that started the day he met her and has yet to stop. It runs on repeat — louder when he buries his face in her hair. Curls himself in on her. Slotting into place. Into a place he didn’t know he belonged to. Into a place he never wants to leave. 

The house is quiet. 

The baby is quiet. 

Everything is perfect. 

**Author's Note:**

> din u lovesick dweeb i love you so much
> 
> This was a fun challenge! Glad to have been able to squeeze another work in for Mandomera Week, and to have done a little more experimenting no dialogue and Din and Omera as characters. Keep an eye out for more from this AU specifically — I've got lots of plans in the works for it. And check out [@mandomeraweek](https://mandomeraweek.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for more content from this appreciation week!


End file.
